by Lindsay Pietroluongo
This article includes over 20 negative news statistics and online media stats that everyone should hear about.
Negative news media is shared daily. At times, it can seem like anything that’s not negative won’t even get a headline, whether it’s in your local news or coming from national news organizations.
According to a 2019 report by the Pew Research Center, 89% of Americans get at least some local news digitally. And Reuters Institute found that aggregators, search, and social media are the main platforms for getting online news. Only about 22% of respondents said that news apps or websites were their primary source of online news.
Between 24-hour news cycles; constant conversations with friends, family and the public; and stories (real and fake) spreading like wildfire on social media, there’s a constant stream of negative information to consume.
In this article, we’ll discuss stats and findings related to negative news, fake news, and the spread of negative words and information on social media platforms.
Is your online reputation at the whim of fake news, negative news content, or misinformation on social media platforms? We can help. NetReputation provides information and services to protect your digital presence. Call us at 844-461-3632 to learn more, or fill out the contact form below for a free consultation.
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Increasing Negative News Statistics in Headlines
A 2022 PLOS One research article found that there has been a 104% increase in the prevalence of headlines that denote anger since 2000. There were also found to be major increases between 2000 and 2019 in headlines that denote other emotions:
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Fear: Over 150% increase
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Sadness: 54% increase
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Disgust: 29% increase
Contrast these numbers with the dropping prevalence of headlines that exhibit neutral emotion — they’ve decreased by 30% since 2000.
The Reuters Institute report found that publishers are spending too much time providing news story updates and not enough time offering more context, different perspectives or optimistic views. This means that users’ needs — which are to feel more confident and hopeful regarding newsworthy content — are not met.
Negative News Statistics in Political Coverage vs. Other News Content
According to the May 2023 American Perspectives Survey by the Survey Center on American Life, the degree of pessimism in negative news varies by topic. Political news media is the most overwhelmingly negative.
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82% of Americans who follow political news say there’s a negative skew to stories.
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57% to 66% of Americans who find the topics of business and economics, climate change and the environment, and international affairs the most compelling also report negative coverage.
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Of Americans who mainly consume sports news, 41% say coverage is neutral and 51% say coverage is positive.
Neutral and positive coverage was also reported for news stories on topics like arts, entertainment, fashion, science and technology.
You can take control of your online reputation even if it’s damaged by negative words in search results, fake news or comments on social media platforms. Call us at 844-461-3632 for more information about how to handle misleading content.
How Negative Emotions Drive News Media Consumption
A 2023 report by Nature titled “Negativity drives online news consumption” looked at approximately 105k variations of Upworthy news stories that generated approximately 5.7 million clicks.
Why Upworthy? They’re known for clickbait-style article headlines. As Sam Sanders put it on the NPR news program All Things Considered, “The Upworthy headline. That model of building curiosity by keeping the true topic of a story hidden until you click.”
The study found that positive words were a bit more prevalent in news headlines than negative words (2.83% versus 2.62%, respectively). However, negative words increased consumption rates and positive words decreased consumption rates. In order from most prevalent to least prevalent, the three most common negative words that showed up were “wrong,” “bad” and “awful.”
The study also found that a larger proportion of negative words in a headline made it more likely for users to access the story. For a headline of average length (14-15 words), click-through rate (CTR) increased by 2.3% for each negative word.
Upworthy’s Crashing Statistics in 2013-2014
According to statistics that Upworthy told NPR, in December 2013, unique monthly website visitors dropped from 87 million to 68 million. They then fell to 49 million in January 2014. By November 2014, the reach was down to around 20 million.
Why did that happen? The exact cause is up for debate, but a good assumption is that Facebook changed its News Feed algorithm.
According to NPR, Facebook wrote in a statement to the broadcasting organization, “It’s no secret there have been several improvements to News Feed in recent years. There has been clear communication about those updates, and why the community of people on Facebook wanted them — particularly in the instance of reducing clickbait and sensationalism.”
Facebook found that while people clicked a lot on clickbait-y headlines, they didn’t actually spend much time on those sites after clicking. Plus, while those stories may have driven a lot of traffic, they didn’t get a high number of shares. Both of these findings told Facebook that the content wasn’t valuable. As NPR put it, “Facebook determined that such stories were clicky, but not sticky.”
Are you dealing with a poor digital reputation due to online news coverage that includes fake news or negative news? At NetReputation, we work with individuals and businesses to help them build and take control of their online reputation. Give us a call at 844-461-3632 to learn more about creating a strategy to combat the news industry and false information online.
Spread of False News and Negative News Media on Social Media
In 2018, three MIT scholars found that false news media spread more rapidly on Twitter (now X) than in real news outlets. This was true in all categories of information, according to Sinan Aral, an MIT Sloan School of Management professor and a co-author of a paper that discussed the findings. Politics, however, made up the biggest topic category.
Other subjects that saw the rapid spread of false news media on Twitter included business, entertainment, natural disasters, science, terrorism and urban legends. (And no, bots were not to blame.)
The study, which tracked news stories that spread on Twitter from 2006-2017, found the following:
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False news stories were 70% more likely to be retweeted than true stories were.
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It took true stories about 6x as long to reach 1,500 people as it did for false stories to reach the same number of people.
Those numbers haven’t improved since then.
A 2024 article by Scientific Reports found that negative news articles are shared 30% to 150% more on social media. This is despite negative news articles being in the minority for news media sites, making up 29% to 42% of content.
According to the researchers, these findings “indicate that the negativity of an article is an important factor in its sharing to social media.” What’s even more interesting is that the articles are often less negative than the social media posts that include them.
Why does false information spread so fast online? One possible reason is that false news is novel precisely because it’s false. People love to share novel information because it gets them attention and makes them see like they’re in-the-know — even if, in reality, they’re misinformed.
COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories: How False Information Spread on Social Media
In June 2020, the Pew Research Center, as part of the American News Pathway Project, surveyed 9,654 U.S. adults. The focus was on the spread of information during the COVID-19 outbreak.
The survey found that adults who used social media “often” for COVID-19 news coverage reported higher levels of exposure to the conspiracy theory that the pandemic was the result of an intentional plan. Here’s how the findings break down:
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71% of U.S. adults said they heard “a little” or more about the conspiracy theory.
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30% of those who used social media for COVID-related news said they heard “a lot” about the theory.
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Compare that 30% to the 15% of those who used social media less often for COVID news and said they heard “a lot” about the theory.
In other words, the fewer people used social media for COVID news, the less they heard about the conspiracy theory.
Negative News Statistics and the Impact on Well-Being
A Grow Therapy survey of 266 therapists found — unsurprisingly — that 99.6% of those polled said that news media consumption can negatively impact mental health.
According to the 2017 Stress in America Survey by the American Psychological Association, adults are conflicted about their desire to stay informed on what’s happening in the world versus their feelings that the media causes them stress.
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95% of adults say they follow the news regularly.
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56% of adults say that following the news causes stress.
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72% of adults feel that the media blows stories out of proportion.
For the 2024 Stress in America Survey, responders rated their stress levels about specific events, news and topics. Here are the percentages of adults who said different topics cause significant stress in their lives:
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Housing Costs: 65%
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Mass Shootings: 63%
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Spread of False News: 62%
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Social Divisiveness in the U.S.: 60%
A PNAS research article from 2019 titled “Cross-national evidence of a negativity bias in psychophysiological reactions to news” found that participants had “higher variability in heart rate during negative news stories than they did during positive news stories.” Researchers went on to say that they “interpret these results as reflecting higher attentiveness and arousal during these negative stories.”
We offer ORM solutions for individuals as well as businesses that are fighting against harmful online news, fake news, and negative words in search results. Get started today with a free consultation with one of our experts. Call us at 844-461-3632 or fill out the contact form below.
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Stress Related to Boston Marathon Bombing Coverage by Media Outlets
A research article published in 2013 in PNAS called “Media’s role in broadcasting acute stress following the Boston Marathon bombings” sought to determine if media coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings was more stressful to people than actual exposure to the bombings. (By “actual exposure,” we mean physically being at or near the bombings when they occurred.)
The survey took place 2-4 weeks post-bombings, which occurred in April 2013. There were both a national sample and samples specifically from Boston and New York.
According to researchers, “Repeated bombing-related media exposure was associated with higher acute stress than was direct exposure.” Specifically, 6+ daily hours of bombing-related media exposure during the week after the bombings caused higher acute stress than direct exposure to the event.
One outcome of this that researchers noted is, “Mass media may become a conduit that spreads negative consequences of community trauma beyond directly affected communities.”
Final Thoughts About Negative News Statistics and Media Companies
Whether it’s fake news or skewed news, negative news in online media sources can have a major impact on your mental health and the way people perceive you, your business, or your industry online.
When major news websites and other online news outlets are sharing negative content about you or your business, it can feel like the whole world’s against you. Even if you know the false information online is not true or accurate, that won’t stop others from believing fake news put out by popular news organizations, media companies, and even social media accounts.
Luckily, with the right online reputation management (ORM) strategy, you can replace fake news and negative news with positive coverage. Between content removal and suppression tactics, your owned neutral and positive news can rise to the top of the search engine results page (SERP). News headlines that frame you or your brand in a bad light don’t have to dominate search results forever.
You don’t have to let false and negative news ruin your reputation or your business. Contact us today at 844-461-3632 or by filling out the form below to speak with an expert.